


To the Victors

by Isis



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-07
Updated: 2011-02-07
Packaged: 2017-10-15 11:56:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/160591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis/pseuds/Isis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cinna watches Haymitch watch the Games.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To the Victors

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Porn Battle XI, prompt: protection

I can tell that Haymitch is aware of me the instant I step into the room. There's no real giveaway – he doesn't turn around, his shoulders don't even stiffen where he sits, but I can tell. Maybe my footsteps aren't as quiet as I thought they were, or he sees me in his peripheral vision, or my reflection in the screen, just enough that he knows he's no longer alone.

I stand there in the doorway for a moment, watching Haymitch watch the Games on the television. Katniss is high in a tree, Peeta somewhere at its base with the tributes with whom he's formed an uneasy alliance. The small dark girl from Eleven perches among nearby branches, unseen by the other tributes, but caught by a hidden lens and broadcast with the rest. The cameras zoom and pan among them, changing angles and perspectives, lingering on a bruised arm here, on torn clothing there, before pulling out to the wide-angle shot of the arena.

"Maybe it will be a quiet night," I say.

"Yeah, right, Cinna. Maybe." Haymitch takes a long drink from the glass in front of him, draining it, then refills it from the bottle. Some kind of wine, an ominous and unfashionable purple, not the pale cool wine that everybody's drinking this season. I suspect Haymitch would prefer something else as well, something stouter, but wine is all Effie's allowing in the apartments. "And maybe a hailstorm's about to hit. Maybe a mutt's going to fly by, something with wings, grab her out of that tree. Maybe those careers are going to realize they don't need a District Twelve boy." He drinks deeply again, slams the glass down hard on the table.

"It's early yet." Early in the Games, I mean; it's late at night. Haymitch moves a little, as if he's about to turn away from the television, but his eyes are still fixed on the screen.

"And it's late," Haymitch says. "What are you doing here?"

"Couldn't sleep."

Haymitch gives a snort that I interpret to mean that he hadn't bothered trying, that he never had any hope of sleeping, that I, a mere stylist, might be finished with my task until Katniss either wins or dies, but that his own job continues twenty-four hours out of every day until the end.

"At least you can help them. You can get sponsors and send gifts. All I can do is watch."

"Is that what you think," murmurs Haymitch, barely loud enough for me to hear.

"You taught them how to survive. I just dressed them." It's not until after the words tumble out of my mouth that I realize how whiny that must have sounded. "I mean –"

Haymitch rises and whirls, fast and lithe as a cat, and he's gripping my shoulders before I've taken a single step. "If _one of them_ survives –" and that's a truth I don't want to think about, that only one of them can emerge from the Games a Victor, that if Katniss survives, Peeta dies, and vice versa – "it's not gonna be because of anything I taught them. Maybe your pretty fire-outfits caught some rich Capital eye, and I can send them something with the money. Maybe it might make _this much_ difference." He lifts one hand from my shoulders and holds his thumb and forefinger so they're nearly touching, inches from my face, inches from his own. I breathe in the sweet and cloying wine-scent. Our eyes lock.

"Ah, fuck it." He turns away from me, stumbling slightly, reaching for his wineglass. The television is still showing the arena, although there's not much to see even with the infrared beams they use at night. He slumps into the chair cushions and takes a drink.

If I could dress Haymitch I'd put him in brown and dark blues, I think. Straight, clean lines, in a fabric that wouldn't crumple when he slouches like that. It's obvious to me he just grabs whatever he finds in his closet and puts it on regardless of whether it goes with anything else. He doesn't think about clothes, I can tell; he doesn't think about anything other than what's in that bottle, and about keeping those kids alive for as long as he can.

How long has he been doing this? Twenty-four years, I guess, since his own Hunger Games, and every year he's had to watch his protégés die. I've seen the recordings. That's why I asked to be assigned District Twelve, of course; so I could contribute, "make a difference." I realize suddenly how stupidly naïve that was.

"Could I have some of that wine, do you think?" I say, stepping the rest of the way into the room.

Haymitch's eyes crinkle with amusement, but I can see the assessment behind them as he considers what I have said, then follows a straight and clean line to the reason I am saying it. "Pull up a glass."

The wine is every bit as awful as it looks. But if I drink enough, it will dull that feeling in me, the one that Haymitch has been dealing with for nearly a quarter of a century. I've given her what armor I can, but if it's not enough I'll have to sit here helplessly as she dies in front of me, on the television screen. And Peeta – for all that he's Portia's, he's mine as well. Even if I win, I will still lose.

Haymitch's hand touches my shoulder, and I realize I must have made a noise, a sob, something that has told him that I've figured it out.

"Yeah," he says.

"Fuck," I tell him, and grimly, he nods.

I tilt my glass and let the rest of the thick, sweet wine slide down my throat. Then I put the glass down and grab Haymitch by the arm and pull him down onto the floor with me. His body tenses but I don't care. I find his mouth and kiss it.

"You're crazy," he says, when I pull back from his lips.

"Panem's crazy," I say. I can't believe I'm saying it out loud. "The Games are crazy."

He exhales, and looks at me with an unreadable expression.

"Presi –"

He stops my words with his mouth. I don't mind. I give in, let him kiss me, let his hands run roughly along my clothes, dig in under my waistband. When he finally lifts his head from mine, he splays his hand across my lips before I can do more than take breath.

"You _do not_ say that. Not here, not anywhere." His voice is harsh and low. "Not yet."

My breath quickens. Is there a rebellion forming in District Twelve? I start to speak but his fingers press harder at the first noise from my throat.

"Maybe not _ever_. Do you understand?"

I blink, nod as best as I can under the pressure of his hand. Tentatively I slip my tongue from between my lips, lick at the salty skin of his palm. It's an offering.

He groans and rolls on top of me. The hand on my mouth slips down to cup the back of my neck. "I don't think I can even do it. Too much wine."

"It doesn't matter."

"None of it matters, sweetheart." The endearment is matter-of-fact; I'm pretty sure he's not talking to me at all. "That's the whole point."

But it _does_ matter, and _that_ is the point, I want to say. Instead I squirm out from under him, slide my hands down his torso to the fastening of his trousers, which are dark green and cut all wrong for him, anyway. I've wanted to get them off him all day, although I wasn't exactly thinking about doing it in this situation.

Despite his words and the wine he is hard, which surprises me, a little. I don't know anything about his former lovers, whether they were male or female or both. He hasn't had any that I was able to find anything about. I wasn't doing this for him, anyway, I was doing it for me; but finding him hard changes my mind.

I stroke him, my fingertips brushing his skin with butterfly lightness. I tell him to lie back and relax, and his cynical snort of reply almost makes me laugh. He gasps, though, when I bend to take him in my mouth. "You're crazy," he mutters again, but I can tell there's no rancor in it, and his hands flutter uncertainly from my hair to my shoulders and back again, squeezing my biceps and then tentatively wrapping around my neck, pulling me closer, pulling me in.

When he comes, he neither cries out nor makes any movement; I can only tell his orgasm by the sudden bitter flood in my mouth.

We lie there for a moment, on the floor. I can hear his breathing over the tinny and banal narration from the television, telling us that nothing much is happening in the arena, as if we didn't know.

"Look, Cinna," he says suddenly. "No, come here." I scoot up toward him and he wraps his arms around me. "That was good, okay." One of his hands slides down to snake beneath my waistband. It just takes a couple of minutes.

He unwinds himself from me and returns to his chair in front of the television. I can hear the glug-glug as he pours himself some more wine. Eventually I get to my feet. My clothes are a mess. Haymitch is staring into his glass.

"It doesn't get any easier, does it," I find myself saying.

"No," he says. He drains his glass. "It never does."


End file.
